Chapter Text
???: “No…”
Subaru: (I only wish for her safety—)
???: “No.”
Satella: “—Baru?”
Subaru: (I feel like I hear a voice… like the chime of a bell… I’m beyond the point where I could even differentiate my senses, so I probably just imagined it. Despite that, even supposing it wasn’t real, I find it extremely comforting. So—)
Satella: (A short scream, and then the carpet of blood welcomed yet another person.)
Subaru: (She had fallen right next to me, exactly where my arm is. Her fair hand dropping powerlessly to intertwine with mine—Probably just a coincidence. I could feel her fingers move slightly… as if squeezing my hand?)
???: “NO!”
Subaru: “...ait.” (I force my disappearing consciousness to return for just a moment. The pain and heat, everything was fading away. It’s meaningless… A waste of effort… Nothing but a loser wasting time… Even so—! ) “I will definitely—”
???: “ NO.”
Subaru: “—Save you!”
???: “ NO! ” ( This isn’t how things were supposed to go… HE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO DIE! I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM— )
Subaru: (At that moment… I died.)
~~(??????????)~~
Satella: (Time paused, the ebbing blood from my beloved’s wounds closing…) “🅸🆃 🆆🅰🆂🅽’🆃 🆂🆄🅿🅿🅾🆂🅴🅳 🆃🅾 🅱🅴 🆃🅷🅸🆂 🆆🅰🆈.” (I kneeled by my love, oh my love, love, love, love, love, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE—FOCUS. Focus… He asked for something… A ‘cool power’? ‘Cheat Skill’? How—how—how—how—how—HOW do I help him? My love. Love… Love…)
(I kneeled in the inky abyss, my eyes piercing the veil. THERE?)
~~(Underneath a Dark Overpass, Japan’s 20th Ward)~~
???: “Aaa~ahhh, delicious! Oh my—Hah?”
Subaru: “Huh?” (I blinked my eyes curiously.) “What?” ( What just…? I stared into the eyes of a woman I didn’t know. She was just a few inches shorter than I, with long, beautiful red hair. She was wearing a long white dress with dark purple sleeves hiding her slender arms. But it wasn’t her beauty that drew my attention… Her eyes, they were… the whites weren’t white—they were black? More than that, was that blood on her mouth?)
Rize: “What? Where did—” (Her hands shoot up to her mouth as her lips curl in a gloating smile.) “Oops. You saw? I’m not sure where he went, but—” (She takes a step forward.)
Subaru: (Shit. Satella! Where is Satella?! My eyes whip around the area, its empty, just me and the crazy woman. No Satella in sight. What???) “Where is she?”
Rize: “I have no idea what you're talking about~” (She takes a step forward, her face rippling with unadulterated glee.)
Subaru: (Shit. That is definitely blood on her face. Wait a minute. My eyes flick around once more, this—this isn’t the isekai world? What the fuck?! This—My eyes scan the area, there’s a light pole, and tall buildings—this is Japan!) “B-back up, ma’am! I’m not sure what’s going on, but—”
Rize: “Sorry~” (She takes another step forward as an odd ripping sound rings out, thick red tentacles sprouting from her lower back.) “You saw. I’ll find Kaneki soon enough~”
Subaru: (I turn on my heel and run, sprinting as hard and as fast as I can in the opposite direction. I’ve gotta find Satella!)
Rize: “Hahaha! Wait~”
Subaru: (She sends a jagged tentacle forward, snatching at my heel, making me stumble and collapse into the pavement, my arms thrown up to protect my face.) “HELP! SATELLA! PLEASE—!”
Rize: “Shhhhh~ Got you <3” (She clamps a tentacle over my lips.) “I’d love to take my time but—” (She slips her eyes up to look around.) “I’m not sure where my real prey went so~ Forgive me!” (She claps her hands together, like shes about to plead for forgiveness. The cutesy demeanor is sickening…)
Subaru: (My eyes widen in horror. What the fuck is happening?! I need to get out of here— My hand had loosely fumbled around the floor as she came closer, my grasp finally landing on something sizable—I slammed a rock hard into the side of the tentacle, loosening its grasp just enough to crawl back as a second tentacle slammed into the pavement where my crotch had been. Yikes!)
(I stumbled up, my feet pounding the pavement before I could even think, I need to get out of—) “GHHK!”
Rize: (A tentacle slammed deep into the boy's lower left back, piercing his body with such force that it rocketed out of his front right side, slamming his body into the sloping wall of the underpass. He had barely even made it twenty feet.) “Oh my~”
“Did you die?” (She took slow, casual steps forward.)
Subaru: “AAAgGH!! AAAaaA” (I threw my hands around my torso as I collapsed on the floor, red hot pain searing through my guts. This feels familiar, too familiar—Wrong—hot hot hot hot! OW.) “Ghhhkkk….fhhmmm!” (I rolled onto my back, my eyes staring up at blinking stars.)
Rize: “Hehehe~” (She giggles happily, standing tall over his body.) “I loooo~oovve humans with body types like yours… They have the proper amount of fat, but not too much muscle. They’re soft and easy to eat~ I can’t linger too long. Wherever that boy went, he’s sure to have got help by now…” (She frowns for a moment, watching as he twitches and groans. His eyes laced with a primal fear as blood ebbs from his body.) “Well, no need to waste food~”
Subaru: (Her mouth waters, a coiled tentacle snaking through the air towards my chin. This is it… Satella… where are you?!)
Satella: “No.” (Metal groans and creaks.)
Rize: (Her gaze flickers upwards.) “Oh?”
(Several metal beams rain from the sky, and a massive clash rings out across the empty streets.)
Rize: “WHY… You… nghh…”
Subaru: (Shit.) “Sss… Satella…”
(My mind… Is fluttering… I feel so light, and so hot. Like a dying star… I hope Satella is ok…)
???: “GET AN AMBULA—”
Subaru: (...)
(...)
(...)
(...What…?)
???: “His abdomen…”
“Lost…”
“Intestines shifted—”
“He…!!”
“Transplant her organs into him.”
Subaru: (Organs? What…? Where…)
???: “The operation was a success!”
~~(A Comfortable Bed)~~
Subaru: “Hey… I don’t know that ceiling?” (I blearily open my eyes, staring at the clinical drop ceiling just above me. The one you’d find in any major hospital or school. I slowly sat up.) “...Satella?”
Satella: (The girl eagerly nodded, holding a… smile on her face.)
Subaru: (It looked exactly like Satella, but this wasn’t Satella?) “...How?” (I lifted my gaze to look around… This was definitely a modern hospital. The wires hanging from my chest onto the monitor thingy confirmed as much.) “Satella, what happened, wh-where are we?” (I shifted, pulling the blanket over me more. Her gaze is so… unsettling, far from the cute girl he had known before this. She was tinged with… an impure air.)
Satella: “I love you.” (She stared straight into my eyes, her manic gaze unnaturally focused. Her clothes were definitely different as well. A dark black dress, a sort of black mist clinging to the fabric. It was like a twisted wedding dress, the veil obscuring her amethyst eyes.)
(Time slowed, the steady beep of the heart monitor freezing.)
Subaru: “H-huh? Wait wha–” (And in that moment, drowsiness consumed me.)
~~(???????????)~~
Subaru: (My mind was a swirling vortex of chaos. That is the only way to condense whatever hell I faced into words. For what felt like weeks, Not-Satella’s words rang through my head. She loved me. She loved me enough to say it for every fraction of time I had some semblance of lucidity. And whenever I did gain my mind back, it was the only thing I had. I had no body, no real features, just a mass of thoughts. It reminded me far too much of one of those dystopian novels, like ‘I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream’.)
(So now, here in this… this place again, things felt weird. Things felt really weird.)
Kadomon: “Hey kid, buy this fuckin’ apple!”
Subaru: “Wh-what, sorry?” (I wave my hand in front of my face.) “I uh, already said, didn’t I? I’m broke beyond compare?” ( Plus… I’m pretty sure that apple is rotten… I slap a hand over my nose as I back away. That thing is definitely not ripe! )
Kadomon: “...Seriously, you’re just browsing? Get outta here! I’m runnin' a business here, I don’t have time for window shoppers.” (The stern older man waved me off, and I obeyed.)
Subaru: (Slipping away, I immediately noticed something new. I popped into a nearby alley quietly unzipping my tracksuit and lifting my shirt and…) “Ah…” (There was a massive gash down my lower right side, surgically sewn shut.) “So…” (My mind reeled, desperately trying to process everything that had happened. I didn’t have long though—)
Chin: “Hey,” (Three men blocked the alley's exit.) “Hand over everything you got. Now.”
Subaru: “What? You guys again?” (My eyes flitted over the three of them. Man, were they fodder villains! But I’ve learned my lesson this time.)
Kan: “Ehhhh, Again? You have any idea what this freak is talking about?”
Ton: “Nah, I’d remember someone like this…” (The large, darker man grinned with anything but good intentions.) “Look, just hand over everything you got, and I’ll let you walk away.” (He cracked his knuckles menacingly.)
Subaru: (I sigh. I don’t need this junk… I hold up the bag staring at its minimal contents.) “Yeah, yeah, everything I got—” (I loosely tossed the bag on the ground in front of me.) “Let’s leave it at that, I need to be somewhere.”
Kan: “Hey, hey! Not so fast—Now act like a dog! Crawl around on all fours and beg for help.” (The tiny mugger sneered.)
Subaru: “Don’t get so cocky!” (My sudden burst of anger made their expression turn to shock. Perfect opening ! I rushed forward, darting at the one in the middle. Take out the one with the knife first! )
(I grinned as I slammed my fist into the gut of the first guy—WHOOMF.)
(...)
(I sent him flying, I threw him so far with one punch that he skidded out of the alley onto the sunlit pavement.)
Kan: “Rachins!” (The small one ran after his friend.)
Ton: (Ton looked nervous as he raised his fists and began to back up.) “Keep your stuff, man, I don’t need it!”
Subaru: “Eh?” (I stared at my fist, mildly dumbfounded as they ran off in fear, picking up and dragging an unconscious Chin away.)